The God Slaying Wolf
by Rialga
Summary: Involved in a deadly ritual, Naruto must fight his way through the other participants caught up in it and confront an unknown foe whose power can only be described as that of a god. Can he slay this mad god before the world is potentially destroyed, all the while coming to terms with his family? Alive Minato/Kushina. Has a sister. Title, this summary, and rating subject to change.
1. Prologue

Here it is guys, my new fic! As you can read, it's a Naruto crossover, but with a visual novel called Fortissimo/Akkord: Bsusvier, which most of you likely have never even heard of. In which case, I highly recommend it as it is an excellent visual novel (strictly my opinion). A guy by the username of COMegamanexe has an entire walkthrough of FortissimoEXA/Akkord: Bsusvier (essentially a complete version of the original mentioned) on Youtube, so if you're interested in checking it out, watch his walkthrough(s) of it.

Now with that bit said, this fic is sort of a crossover in that I will be using a lot of concepts from the visual novel (that I will be doing my best to stay faithful to for the sake of making things easy to understand and all) though I will be putting my own twist or changes on a small number of them. While this could easily be done and presented in a non-crossover Naruto fic, I want to still give credit when credit is definitely due. That and I want to try and promote Fortissimo a bit; it needs more love.

And on another note, with the exception of perhaps one or two characters (perhaps not even that), I won't actually be using any characters from the visual novel, but I will be creating OCs that are heavily based on them with the exception of a few. So if you're not a real big fan of OCs, then you might want to stop reading this already. The reason for this is that this is yet another thing I want to try out and see how I do in addition to the fact that since characters carrying over from one manga/game/etc. to another for them to essentially do the same thing as they did in canon as seen in a number of fanfictions I've come across are a little redundant in a way, I want to try and mix things up.

Also, as you'll quickly see, I'm also using another fanfic concept in this fic that has proven to be rather popular with others.

Now with that out of the way, let's get it started!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Fortissimo/Akkord: Bsusvier, though I certainly wish I did. They belong to Masashi Kishimoto and La'cryma respectively.

One last side note: title of fic may be subject to change, just letting you know for the sake of things.

The God Slaying Wolf Prologue

In the time of the Sage of the Six Paths, there was more than just more going in the world than the birth of ninja. It was also around this time that magic came to be, leading to the birth of magi. No one is quite certain just how or where exactly magic first got its start – though overtime through meticulous study, it would be revealed that strange, alien stones had something to do with this, merging with certain people prior to them ever awakening as a magus – but the number of people who could use it grew slowly overtime and usually kept their powerful abilities hidden from the rest of the world, not wanting to attract the attention of the shinobi, whose culture was flourishing following the Sage of the Six Paths, Hagoromo Otsutsuki, defeating the monstrous Juubi, the God Tree, and spreading the art of ninjutsu across the countries.

However, one day this all changed. A group that called itself Voluspa, which was dedicated to researching the unearthly stones, was found out by a small number of shinobi and these shinobi, upon discovering the existence of magi, attacked Voluspa in an attempt to take the stones they had and try to use them to make themselves stronger. Members of Voluspa fought back, but unfortunately their abilities, strange in the eyes of shinobi, earned them far more attention than they ever would have preferred and soon more and more shinobi would show up to try and take them down.

In the end, a small war erupted between magi and shinobi, this war kept secret from the rest of the world. This miraculous secrecy was due to Voluspa who eventually managed to create a machine that generates a dimension known as Ai Space, where magi could fight against shinobi that had managed to take and merge with the stones, thereby becoming magi themselves upon awakening.

All the while, the people that were not fighting on the frontlines tried to think of ways to put an end to all of the fighting and restore order to the world, before things escalated anymore. To this end, the most brilliant and dedicated scientists of Voluspa did their best to try and replicate a stone, which was nearly pitch black in color and odd in shape upon creation. This stone was created with the intention of whoever it merged with would become the ultimate magus, one with the power to finally put an end to the war.

However, much like the original stones, this manmade stone would only fuse with a person who was born with latent magical abilities that lied dormant deep within themselves. And in this case, and this case alone, the stone would only bond with the strongest of them all.

After many failed attempts, Voluspa would finally find the only person that the stone had deemed worthy of merging with, a member of their own group, much to their bitter irony after having spent months on end of searching outside of the organization.

This member was a man that had a certain air about him, one that radiated absolute confidence and power and commanded respect from everyone around him, despite not being a shinobi nor a warrior in general at the time.

Voluspa and other magi had rejoiced following the merging of this man and the black stone, thinking that soon their battle with the shinobi would be brought to an end so that they can return to secrecy. But, much to the shock of everyone, including the man himself, he could not awaken as a magus. No matter how much he trained, no matter how many battlefields he fought on, no matter how many people he ended up defeating, he did not awaken his innate magus abilities.

Euphoria amongst magi had given way to resentment overtime and soon the man was seen as a sort of outcast, a failure. Despite how strong he grew even without awakening, he simply was not powerful enough to end the war. And so the war continued.

But one day, this had changed.

One shinobi who had merged with a stone stolen for Voluspa, awoke as a magus and his abilities had proven to be terrifyingly powerful. Quickly becoming drunk on his own power, the newly awakened magus had gone on a rampage, during this time managing to destroy the machine that generated Ai Space and as a result the dimension collapsed. The fighting between Voluspa and the shinobi-turned-magi spilled over to the real world, where the insane shinobi that had now been labeled as the Rogue Flame would proceed to slaughter them all, laying waste to everything around him in maddening glee.

It was at some time during his rampage that he had stumbled across a small village that by sheer chance the man who had bonded with the pitch black stone lived. The man, who along with the rest of Voluspa had not foreseen the Rogue Flame's attack, had only watched in horror and helplessness as he returned to his home village in time to see it burning, the flames rising high into the sky and flickering malevolently, like a scene directly out of the pits of hell.

The man had searched whatever had remained intact of the village, desperate to save anyone, but to no avail. Everyone that had been in the village at the time of the attack had been killed. The only survivors were those who had been out of the village at the time.

Despair had struck the man as he eventually stumbled across the charred corpse of his wife. This shock, combined with everything that had led up to this horrific sight, was enough for the man to finally awaken as a magus.

Immediately following his awakening, the man hunted down the Rogue Flame and killed him and then proceeded to put an end to the war before it was even night that very same day, his abilities proving to be above and beyond anything any other magus has ever known.

But despite his victory and the return to secrecy for magi, it had been a most bitter irony for the man; in order for him to have awakened as a magus to protect what he held dear, he first had to lose it all.

The man, overcome with bitterness, would then disappear from the world, with a new goal in his mind. It was a goal that he vowed he would see accomplished.

No matter what it may take.

**Many, Many decades later…..**

"I got it!" a young girl, seven years old, exclaimed happily. Said girl was of slightly below average height for her age and had long red hair and bright blue eyes, which she had inherited from her mother and father respectively. She was Reiko Uzumaki Namikaze, daughter of Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki Namikaze.

Her father, the esteemed Yellow Flash himself, stood nearby with a proud smile on his face. "Great job, Reiko!" he said proudly as he looked over the damage done to the log they had used for Reiko to practice a low level wind jutsu on.

Kushina was nearby as well and was all but squealing for her daughter's success. "You'll be a great kunoichi in no time," she said, with a big smile on her face.

From his room in the family's pleasant two storied house, Naruto Namikaze, elder twin brother of Reiko, watched the rest of his family interacting from through the window. Unlike his sister, who mainly took after their mother with the exception of the eyes and skin complexion, Naruto took almost completely after Minato, with the only real difference being their skin complexion. Whereas Minato had a skin complexion that was almost more along the lines of a tan, Naruto had the light, almost pale complexion of his mother. And unlike his sister, Naruto was of slightly above average height for his age.

The elder Namikaze child sighed tiredly. "There they go again…." He muttered with a hint of disdain in his voice. It's always been this way, for as long as he could remember.

This was because of what happened nearly seven years ago, when the two of them had been born. The powerful biju, the Kyuubi, had attacked the village on that very same day and Minato had gone off to fight the beast, only to be incapable of actually defeating it. With the impossibility of actually defeating the Kyuubi, Minato was only able to turn to one option: sealing it, which is exactly what he did, sealing the strongest of all the biju into Reiko, turning her into a jinchuriki. Amazingly, Minato didn't die as a result of the sealing, as the Reaper Death Seal was supposed to kill the user, only for said creature to decide holding off on taking Minato's soul for the time being apparently.

It had been following this that she was proclaimed a hero by the village when Minato revealed what he did to the populace. Ever since then, Reiko has been treated like gold while Naruto had simply been pushed off to the side. Even his own parents paid more attention to his sister over the years than they ever have to him.

At first, this had greatly angered him and caused him great despair. But as of now, at only seven years of age, Naruto had simply stopped to feel any real connection with his family as his parents were always busy attending to Reiko outside of their own duties – Minato as hokage and Kushina as an occasional instructor for new Anbu recruits – while paying him less and less mind. Though every now and then, he'd feel a smidgen of anger whenever he saw scenes like this.

"And they've never said just how the Kyuubi got loose anyway," he thought as he got up from his current sitting spot. He and Reiko were both aware of the fact that their mother had been the previous jinchuriki for the Kyuubi. While Reiko didn't really seem to pay this little fact any mind, Naruto did, wondering just how in the hell the Kyuubi got free in the first place then. Naturally, this was a question his parents never bothered to answer.

Putting his shoes on, Naruto ran a hand through his spiky hair as he then walked out of his room, down the stairs and decided to leave for a bit. It's been a few days since he's seen his friends anyway. "Heading out for a bit," he said loud enough for his parents and sister to hear. He received no reply. This got a twitch out of him, though his facial expression seemed unreadable.

He slammed the door on his way out.

Naruto walked with hands in pocket through the village as he made his way to where he and his two friends mainly hung out, that being one of the training fields, one that was the furthest away from the village. As he took his time walking to the training field, not a single villager or shinobi he passed by so much as even glanced at him. Even though he was the eldest child of the hokage, he meant very little in the eyes of others, being virtually unknown as everyone paid far more attention to his outgoing and energetic sister.

Naruto walked in silence, in turn not paying the rest of the crowd any heed at the moment. It took him a while to get there, but about twenty minutes of walking later, he finally arrived. As luck would have it, he was not the only one there.

"Naruto," said the only other person, a boy around the same age as Naruto. He was of average height for his age and was of a lean and wiry build for a kid. His somewhat shaggy black hair framed his face a bit, the boy's matching black eyes locking onto Naruto. He smiled. "How are you doing?"

Naruto smiled too. "Doing good, Ryuichi. You?" he replied as he walked forward, his eyes unconsciously looking over the training field like always. The training field he and his friends favored was pretty plain, with a flat grass land look to it, though there were several boulders surrounding the large field in a circular pattern. But there was one thing that made the training field stand out and it was this that Naruto's eyes locked onto.

Right there, on the opposite end of the training field from where Naruto was at, stood a large and beautiful sakura tree, its petals practically glowing in the sunlight. Wordlessly, Naruto walked up to it and pressed his right hand against it and closed his eyes. Ryuichi watched this in silence, having grown used to this; it was a habit that Naruto had developed when they first started coming to this training field.

Naruto sighed in contentment as a moment later he finally took a step back. He wasn't sure just why this sakura tree was even here in the village at all, as it contrasted with the other trees that were in the general area, but he wasn't complaining. For reasons he just couldn't explain, there was just something about this tree that put him at peace whenever he came.

"I'm doing well too, by the way," Ryuichi said in amusement.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, having already forgotten he had just asked how Ryuichi had been doing too. "Ah, my bad."

Ryuichi just laughed and got off the boulder he had been sitting on and began to approach Naruto. He began to clench and unclench his right hand. "Well, since all we've been doing lately is either just hanging out or training on our own, how about we have a quick spar? It's been a while since we've done that," he stated.

Naruto smirked. Whenever it came to conversation, things always did appear a little awkward between the two of them, just like now with how they've barely said anything to one another for the past few minutes since arriving.

But then again, the two of them never really one for verbal communication. Instead, they communicated with one another through another way.

Naruto chuckled as he took up a fighting stance, one that was based off of the standard stance taught by the academy, though with his own spin on it. "Sounds good to me. Bring it, Ryuichi."

Ryuichi grinned and took up a fighting stance as well. As soon as he did so, he let out a bit of a battle cry as he then charged straight at Naruto, surprisingly fast for one so young.

But Naruto wasn't taken off guard by the speed and so was able to tilt his head back in time to dodge the punch that Ryuichi promptly tossed his way.

Ryuichi wasn't done just yet though, letting the momentum of the punch spin him about to execute a roundhouse kick that Naruto had to actually leap back to avoid.

Then Naruto took advantage of the opening left after it to rush forward and deliver an uppercut at Ryuichi's exposed torso, only for his friend to raise his right arm to guard against the hit. Naruto threw a few more punches after that, one aimed for Ryuichi's face while the others were aimed for his lower torso, but Ryuichi, despite being a kid, dodged them all with a finesse that would have looked more at home on a seasoned chunin.

Naruto couldn't help but grin a bit and the same went for Ryuichi. Both of them were unusually talented in taijutsu for kids so young as shown when the two of them began to start trading more blows right now, with the two being nearly even, though Ryuichi was beginning to gain an advantage and Naruto found himself slowly getting forced back as he started to attack less and defend more, dodging and blocking the many punches and kicks that Ryuichi was throwing at him.

It got to the point where Naruto had no choice, but to roll out of the way as Ryuichi leapt a bit to do a fierce reverse roundhouse, the kick just barely missing Naruto. As he rolled underneath the airborne Ryuichi, Naruto managed to reach out and grab him by the leg and pull down. Ryuichi could only yelp in surprise before he crashed into the ground.

Naruto then charged at him, but this was rewarded with Ryuichi quickly recovering and kicking him hard in the chest with both feet. Naruto gasped, losing air as he staggered back and fell, though he rolled to end up on his knees rather than on his back.

He did this just in time to see Ryuichi leap to his feet and Naruto spotted an opening as he did so. Shrugging off the pain as best as he could, he ran forward at Ryuichi. His friend saw this coming and threw a haymaker, but Naruto had in turn seen this coming too and moved low, spinning about and smashing an elbow right into Ryuichi's side. Ryuichi's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets from the strong and well placed hit and he stumbled back, clutching the wounded area.

Naruto dashed forward a few steps and punched Ryuichi again in the midsection, nearly making him double over. Naruto blinked in surprise right after that as Ryuichi appeared to double over too much. Then surprise gave way to shock when Ryuichi somersaulted forward. "Oh cr-!" he began only to get cut off as the back of Ryuichi's right shoe smashed into his face.

Naruto was knocked back at a bit of an awkward angle, as though he did a backflip and failed at it. He groaned. "Owww….." he said, clutching his nose, which was now bleeding a bit.

"That's my line," Ryuichi coughed out as he slowly got up. He wheezed as he rubbed the spots where he got hit. He then made his way over to Naruto and offered him his hand, which Naruto took and stood up. "You alright?"

Naruto grinned despite the pain. "Eh, I'll heal. Times like these make me glad I'm an Uzumaki; strong vitality and all that." He paused as he began to wipe the dirt off his clothes. "You've gotten better."

Ryuichi smiled a little cheekily, a bit of surprise as he was usually not the playful type. "So have you. Amazing what training can do for us if we really give it our all."

Naruto nodded as he finished wiping off the dirt. "Yeah. That and it's because of that scary Bushy-Brows guy…."

He and Ryuichi shivered at that as they recalled the first time they met Maito Gai, nearly a year ago or so when they had first met and started to train. The green jumpsuit wearing man had been passing by at the time of them training one time and lent them a hand in their physical and taijutsu training, having been touched by their 'youth' (i.e. the surprising intensity in which the two had put forth in their training) at that time. Every now and then, Konoha's Green Beast would seek them out to see how things were progressing with their training. While his help was much appreciated, the two boys could go without the man's terrifyingly large eyebrows and obsession with youth.

"Y-Yeah…." Ryuichi muttered. He and Naruto respected the man greatly, but damn it if he wasn't an odd one.

"Oh, you two are already here?" a young girl's voice called out to them.

Both boys turned to see a young girl, just a few months younger than them, entering the training field. Said girl was of average height for her age, with a skin complexion almost matching Naruto's. The girl had long light brown hair currently tied back into a ponytail and light blue eyes. Currently, the girl was dressed in plain clothing, the kind one wouldn't have a problem with getting dirty. In her right hand, she carried a wooden sword.

"Miki, hey there," Naruto said with a smile as he waved to his other only friend. Ryuichi waved too, but didn't say anything, simply opting for a cheerful smile.

Miki simply looked at the two and took note of Naruto's nose, which was still bleeding. She also didn't miss the disheveled look of the clothes both boys wore. She simply giggled as she walked towards them. "Already sparred, huh?"

Both boys looked sheepish. "Yeah, you know it. Shame you weren't here; you'd have seen me have Ryuichi on the ropes," Naruto bragged.

Ryuichi shook his head and smacked Naruto lightly on the back. "Odd. That's not how I remember it just a moment ago. Maybe I hit you too hard?" he said.

The child of the hokage rolled his eyes. "As if."

At this point, Miki had gotten close enough to the boys for her to pull a small clothe out of her pocket and use it to wipe Naruto's nose, which took said boy by surprise. "M-Miki?"

She smiled a bit ruefully. "You did know you still had a bloody nose, right?" She wiped up the blood and then tossed the clothe onto one of the boulders. She made a mental note to wash the clothe later or something.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Ah, my bad." He glared at Ryuichi right after that as he heard the other boy chuckle.

Ryuichi stepped forward a bit, eyeing Miki's wooden sword. "How goes the kenjutsu training?" he asked.

At that, Miki sighed. "Not too bad, but it'd be nice if I can pick up the training pace a bit more; tou-san and kaa-san fret too much." She looked a little bummed, but there was a bit of understanding in her looks too. After all, it wouldn't do for someone so young to practice with deadly weapons.

Ryuichi nodded in agreement, his eyes closed and arms crossed. Then he opened his eyes. "In that case, care for a spar? I'm curious to see how good your technique is now."

Miki smirked and nodded. Ryuichi smirked in return and then looked at Naruto. "How about it, Naruto? You want to spar again too?"

Naruto waved him off as he started to walk towards one of the boulders. "Sure. After you guys are done though. The last time all three of us fought at the same time, things got a little too out of hand, even for me at the time."

His friends wordlessly agreed with that and thus proceeded to get to their spar. Both Miki and Ryuichi took several steps away from each other, Ryuichi taking up his earlier fighting stance while Miki raised her sword at an angle in front of her.

Both of them had a steely look in their eyes, a stark contrast to the semi-serious and mostly playful look that Naruto and Ryuichi had during their spars. The reason behind this was simple enough: both Miki and Ryuichi were essentially mortal enemies when it came to sparring. In Miki's case, since she was so young and all she's focused on was kenjutsu so far in her short life, her taijutsu skills were horrible and if she ended up with her wooden sword knocked out of her hands, then she has essentially lost as she wouldn't be able to go against Ryuichi's far superior taijutsu.

In Ryuichi's case, while he held the taijutsu advantage, Miki had the range advantage due to the size and length of her wooden sword. And her skill with it was praiseworthy for one barely starting out in kenjutsu, so that just made her all the more dangerous. But what he was always worried about when sparring with her was her philosophy of kenjutsu being a deadly art meant to defeat the opponent as swiftly as possible. Because of this philosophy of hers, Miki always goes for what could be deemed the ending blow, not holding anything back. And while this philosophy-turned-training may not leave her with too much stamina since she always tried to end things swiftly, Miki's strength was surprisingly great, being just a few notches below him and Naruto, so a direct hit from her is going to hurt a lot, to the point where he'll be wishing he had Naruto's constitution afterwards.

It was a bit funny in a way; Miki took sparring so seriously because of her own surprising philosophy and the belief that not ending it quickly could lead to defeat whereas Ryuichi took things so seriously because of Miki never holding back and in turn always unconsciously not holding anything back either, leading to Miki being on the offensive more to keep him from disarming her and so on. It was really one big circle in a way.

Naruto sat down on one of the boulders, shifting around a bit as it felt rather unbalanced, like it might roll out of place if he moved too much.

It was as he did this that his friends started their spar.

As Ryuichi expected, Miki immediately rushed forward, wooden sword held high overheard. With a yell, she swung down fast enough that Ryuichi only barely managed to step back to avoid it. The young boy then moved a bit to his right and jabbed at Miki, but she raised her sword in time to guard against it, Ryuichi's fist smashing harmlessly into the wooden object.

Undeterred by this, Ryuichi went low and performed a leg sweep, but Miki lightly jumped to avoid it and swung her sword at an angle. Ryuichi had duck to avoid the swing and rolled back after his failed attack, trying to put some space in between him and Miki.

But his female friend gave chase. Despite how serious he takes this, Ryuichi couldn't help but chuckle very briefly. "Always on the offensive," he thought.

Miki spun around, arms extended as far as she can manage as she swung. It was once again dodged by Ryuichi and the boy retaliated against this with a high kick aimed for Miki's chest. Just like he had done, Miki dodged, but only barely as she had to use the back of the wooden sword to slightly deflect the kick in the process. She then moved forward a bit and tried to smash the bottom of her sword hilt into Ryuichi's side, but he actually caught her arms before she could do anything and pushed her back.

Miki stumbled and it was at this sight that Ryuichi actually decided to really go on the attack and he charged right at her, jumping and attempting to kick her in the chest. Miki saw it coming and managed to regain her balance in time to jump a bit and as Ryuichi's kick passed right by her, both of them lashed out, cross countering one another.

Miki had swung her wooden sword and the flat side of it slammed into Ryuichi's side, while Ryuichi had managed to swivel his upper body enough to throw a punch that had hit Miki in the left side of the face. Both of them cried out in pain and surprise from the cross counter and ended up getting knocked back, with Miki falling onto her butt while Ryuichi, who had still been slightly airborne when hit, hit the ground a little awkwardly and ended up rolling across the ground a bit.

Naruto, having watched the brief spar in silence until now, was surprised and worried now. Those hits had looked rather nasty. "You guys alr-, whoa!" he began to say as he quickly began to move off of the boulder, but the sudden movement caused the boulder to roll backwards and he ended up falling forward on his face.

Naruto quickly began to get up, a little embarrassed as the fall had only slightly stung. "Just awesome…" he muttered sarcastically. As he stood, he immediately dusted himself off and moved quickly towards the downed Ryuichi and Miki. "You alright?" he asked as he helped Ryuichi up and then Miki.

"Ow, ow, ow…" Ryuichi muttered as he held his side. "That was a pretty good hit…."

"I can say the same thing…." Miki quietly said as she rubbed the quickly forming bruise on her face. She paused in her actions to look at Naruto. "How about you? I just saw you fall…."

Naruto rubbed the back of his head, averting her gaze. "So damn embarrassing…."

Ryuichi managed to shrug off the pain he was feeling just long enough to pat Naruto on the shoulder. "It happens to the best of us," he said with a chuckle, only to stop almost immediately and go back to clutching his side.

Naruto just twitched at his words. "Riiiiggghhhttt. Of course," he said blandly before turning around. He froze right after he did though, his eyes locking onto where the rolled boulder had once been. He then raised a finger and pointed. "Uh, guys?"

Ryuichi and Miki both looked at where he was pointing and blinked rapidly in surprise.

Right where the rolled over boulder used to be in sat what looked like three stones. All three stones were very unnatural looking to say the least about them, unearthly even. One was roughly half the size of Naruto's hand and it was a brilliant blue, more beautiful than the color of the ocean itself. The other stone right next to it was a bit more jagged around the edges and roughly the same in size and was a startlingly vibrant yellow, bordering on gold. The last was just a bit larger than the other two and was much thinner, being a glowing white in color.

All three kids could only stare in shock and amazement. "Say, Ryuichi? Miki? Have those always been there?" Naruto asked dumbly.

Both of them shook their head. "N-No, we would have known if they were…. right?" Miki replied uncertainly, her grip on her wooden sword slackening by the second.

"Well it's not as if we've ever looked underneath the boulders here before…." Ryuichi brought up as he took a step forward and stopped.

All three of them shared a look before they began to walk towards the stones a minute later. When they reached the stones, all they could do was keep staring. "So… should we tell someone about these stones?" Ryuichi asked his friends. "T-There could be a chance that these belong to someone…."

"No way, everyone in the village would be talking about these things if they belonged to someone," Miki said, shaking her head.

Naruto didn't say anything. Instead, a few seconds later, he slowly crouched down and began to reach for one of the stones.

"W-What are you doing, Naruto?!" Miki exclaimed in shock.

He looked at her briefly. "Just going to touch it." He sounded a little worried though. "And before you say it could be dangerous, just think: what else do we do? Just leave them here or something?" he asked.

Miki, who was about to speak, closed her mouth quickly and began to think on that. It was true to an extent. There wasn't really anyone that they could tell about this since they didn't know what they would tell them. And after having seen these stones, leaving them here just wasn't an option; after all, what if someone else came along or something? If the stones are dangerous then letting someone else potentially get hurt was out of the question.

Ryuichi seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Miki too, his eyes narrowing. "Then it can't be helped. If these things are dangerous in any way, then we can't just risk someone else coming along and get hurt by touching them. I'd rather take that risk myself," he said surprisingly sternly. He's always had a rather strong sense of justice in a way.

With that said, Naruto nodded in agreement and then focused his gaze back on the stones, more specifically the blue one. He slowly reached out for it, keenly aware of his friends' worried gazes drilling into the back of his head.

Then his index figner made contact with the stone and he froze for an instant to see if anything would happen. When nothing did, he let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. "Well, so far nothing…."

Ryuichi and Miki seemed a bit relieved by this, but still pretty worried. "Still, I can't just let you take this risk…" Then without any more talk, he reached down and grabbed the yellow stone.

"I-I guess I'll take the last one then…." Miki said before she quickly grabbed the remaining stone, the white one from its spot on the ground.

When they did this, Naruto fully took the blue one into his hands and stood back up. They all stared at their held stones keenly. "It doesn't feel dangerous…." Naruto spoke up.

Then it appeared as though he spoke too soon as the blue stone in his hand suddenly began to glow, nearly blinding Naruto for a second. "Whoa!" Before he could even think to drop it, he saw the blue stone then float out of his hand and shoot straight into his chest.

He staggered back, not from pain but surprise as the stone went through his skin like a ghost through a wall. When that happened, he felt a strange feeling overcome him for a brief second, one that nearly made his entire body go numb solely from the shock of it.

He fell onto his butt, his eyes wide.

"Naruto!" both of his friends cried out.

But before they could do anything, the same thing ended up happening to them, the stones they held floating out of their hands and blasting forth into their chests. They fell to the ground just like Naruto did as the strange feeling overcame them.

However, as fast as it had happened, the odd feeling disappeared and now all three kids simply sat dumbstruck on their rears, trying to figure out what just happened.

"A-Are you guys alright?" Ryuichi asked a few minutes later, all of them still trying to get their bearings.

"Y-Yeah, I think so," Miki replied shakily.

Naruto rubbed his chest at where the stone had seemingly entered him. "S-Same here…" He slowly began to get up, his legs shaking a bit. "Damn, just what was that?"

"Don't know…" Ryuichi said as Naruto helped Miki up.

Miki shot Naruto a grateful look for helping her up before she began to rub her chest just like Naruto had done. "Well, it doesn't…. seem…. feel… like something bad will happen…" she said quietly.

"Only time will tell, I guess….?" Naruto said uncertainly.

Ryuichi looked around the training field warily before looking at his friends. "A-At any rate, how about we call it an early day and head back home? And if something comes up with any of us about this, we let each other know as soon as possible?" he suggested.

Both Naruto and Miki nodded. "Yeah, sounds good…" Naruto replied.

"Same here…." Miki also answered.

Then, awkwardly, all three of them began to head home, their thoughts caught up on what had just happened.

Naruto in particular was worried over what had happened. He wasn't sure why, but he had a feeling that what had just happened would came back to bite them all in the ass one day.

* * *

And that's the end of the prologue. Admittedly, not my best work as prologues aren't really my strong suit (with one exception) despite how much time I spent on this. Regardless, I do hope that this was enough to intrigue some of you enough to keep on reading whenever I get around to the next chapter.

Now, a bit more about the Fortissimo visual novel I'm using. If any of you are indeed familiar with it, then you'll know what I did with those friends of Naruto's. To those of you who don't know of the visual novel, Ryuichi is actually a character from Fortissimo. Miki, on the other hand, is not, though her first name is the same as another character from the visual novel. But my Miki is indeed an OC, though heavily based off of a character or two.

Also regarding Fortissimo: the stones. In the visual novel, they were actually given a label/term/name/etc. In Fortissimo, these stones are called OOPArts (short for 'Out-Of-Place-Artifacts.' Also, in Japanese, it means 'excavated super metal'). The reason why I'm telling you this little tid bit of info is because I will rarely use the actual term in this fic, except for perhaps one scene or two that is off near the end of this fic.

Okay, with that out of the way, up next is the real chapter 1 that takes place 9-10 years after this, so Naruto will be around 16-17 years old along with his sister and his friends. And from there, things are going to be picking up relatively quickly as I get the ball rolling.

So with all that now said, I hope you enjoyed this little prologue. Don't forget to review!

-Rialga


	2. Chapter 1

Wow! Never did I expect the prologue to get so many views within the first week! And not to mention, it already got 7 favs and follows! I'm honored, guys, seriously. Now my already great passion to do this fic has increased even more!

With that thanks now said, from here on, things will progress somewhat fast as I'll be introducing a few things in this chapter, following, of course, a good deal of time being spend on explaining what's changed since the prologue. Just bear with me, guys!

Let's get this started!

P.S. In regards to Naruto's physical description right at the start of this chapter, just think of him as a slightly taller and slightly more muscular, blond haired, blue eyed version of the protagonist from Fortissimo, Reiji Yoshino. I'll probably post a link to a pic of Reiji later so you can see what I mean guys.

P.P.S. Yeah, sorry for taking so long to get this chapter out too, by the way. Just had a bit of hard time making sure all the info I'm using from Fortissimo is accurate and all that. Also, the next chapter will most likely not be out until maybe mid to late November, as I plan to work a bit more on my personal side project in addition to having to do a few essays and tests for classes within the coming weeks.

Chapter 1

**Ten years later**

Naruto sighed as he stretched his arms. "Haaaa…." He did his best to suppress a yawn as he walked through the village towards the training grounds.

Over the years, the son of the hokage has grown up quite a bit, with his hair being much spikier than it was as a kid in addition to being in a bit of a different style, drawing attention to his baby fat free face. The seventeen year old has also grown to be a bit on the tall side, standing at just an inch taller than his dad. And thanks to all of the taijutsu training he does, he possessed a lean yet muscular physique, somewhat shown off by the simple light shade of black pants and matching shirt he wore. Over the shirt, Naruto wore a thin black vest that was unbuttoned and was a few shades darker than the rest of his clothes. His standard shinobi sandals was also of a similar shade of grey, the closed toed wear complimenting the vest. To complete the look, Naruto also wore an immaculate silver necklace in the form of a howling wolf head, a present he had received a few years back for his birthday from Miki.

Right now, Naruto was planning to simply hang out for a bit on his own, his sister and parents still being in bed; it was rather early in the morning after all and as such as he walked, there were very few villagers around.

This was something that Naruto, as sleepy as he still was, liked. Aside from his two friends, he was not exactly much of a people person. "That'd be Reiko…." He thought a little bitterly.

Over the years, his parents' lack of attention for him had remained the same while they and just about everyone else in the village mainly focused on Reiko and as such the younger twin of the two Namikaze children was far more sociable than Naruto was.

What's more is that in addition to getting all of their parents' and the village's attention and support, Reiko was turning out to be a splendid kunoichi of Konoha, with her now on a genin team with none other than the talented Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, who has shown a talent for genjutsu during their time in the academy.

As for Reiko herself, she had received training personally from her parents while Naruto hadn't. She was decent at taijutsu and had a large arsenal of jutsu in regards to ninjutsu, though she mainly stuck to a few jutsu in particular. While she may be lacking in genjutsu, due to how much chakra she has as a result of being a jinchuriki, she also had some praiseworthy skill with a sword, courtesy of training with Kushina who once used a blade back when she was younger.

But in Naruto's case, it was far different. While he was extremely talented in taijutsu, aside from Gai's tutelage every now and then, he had no one else to help him improve aside from Ryuichi. The number of jutsu he actually knew outside of the basic ones taught at the academy was dismal to say the least and thanks to his Uzumaki and Namikaze lineage, his chakra reserves were too large for him to even think of using genjutsu.

All in all, as usual, it seemed he got the short end of the stick as just a few days ago, his and Reiko's godfather Jiraiya came by and discussed with Minato and Kushina the possibility of Reiko signing the toad contract.

"As always, she gets everything without even trying," Naruto thought as he violently shoved his hands into his pockets. Over the years, he had gone from being relatively calm in regards to the neglect he suffered at the hands of his parents and everyone else to nearly hating them all for it. The only reason he didn't actually hate them was because at least he knew it wasn't intentional, merely ignorance on their part, though that only made it worse in a way. But nonetheless, he was far from happy whenever he was around his family.

He continued to walk in silence until he got to the training field that he and his friends had always hung out at, that being training field 13.

His frown slowly turned upside down as the sakura tree bloomed as beautifully as always as he was close enough to actually see it. Like always, just approaching the tree had a calming effect on the blond teen and his slowly forming smile gave off a sense of inner peace as he finally approached and gently placed his palm on the trunk of it.

"Even after all this time, I still don't know why I'm calm down around you…" he muttered to the tree, not caring that it wasn't actually alive or anything, "but I'm not complaining about it."

He stayed like that for a few minutes before backing away and jumping onto one of the boulders in the area. As he did so, Naruto couldn't help but look at one boulder in particular, the one that he, Ryuichi, and Miki had found those odd stones under a decade ago. Every now and then he'd think back on that day, but only thought on it idly. It wasn't as if he'd figure out what exactly had happened that day after all.

Naruto sighed. "Man, what a nice day so far…." He looked up at the sky as he got his mind off of the memory.

The eldest child of the hokage proceeded to stay in that position for several minutes in peace.

However, that peace was shattered and done so by the one person Naruto hadn't expected at all. Having sensed this person's presence and recognizing it, Naruto got off of the boulder, his contented smile turning into a deep frown.

He looked towards one of the nearby trees. "What is it?" This was all he demanded and nothing else.

If anyone had heard how he said these three words, they would have cringed at the level of barely controlled anger that made itself known in his voice.

From the tree, some rustling could be heard before someone dropped down from one of the branches a few seconds later.

It was a girl of slightly below average height for a seventeen year old girl, but as if to compensate for her short stature, the girl had a reasonably curvaceous and well endowed figure, somewhat shown off by the red jacket, the mesh shirt under it and the plain black pants she wore. On the right pant leg was a kunai holder, firmly strapped there. The girl's complexion had slightly more color to it than Naruto's own, which perfectly matched her red hair and bright blue eyes. It was none other than Reiko, Naruto's younger twin sister, all grown up and so far shaping up to be a beautiful and strong kunoichi.

The girl was looking rather sheepish at having been caught, shown in the form of her almost nervously scratching the back of her head. "Eh heh heh, you sensed me, onii-chan…" she said.

"Reiko." Naruto's voice was cold as he addressed his sister. His sister flinched. "What. Is. It?" he demanded as he put his hands in his pockets.

Reiko fidgeted, like a young child being scolded by her parents. "Er, nothing," she began. "It's just…. Well, I happened to wake up early and spotted you leaving…. so I was curious to see where you were going…?" She tried to sound confident, but failed.

"So you essentially stalked me?" Naruto asked, his patience wearing thin.

Granted, he never really had much patience for things regarding his family, especially his sister sometimes, but it was particularly short right now and in his mind, it was justified; his sister was a very curious person by nature and sometimes had a bad habit of snooping into other people's business, if it really caught her interest. Thankfully, she had never really tried to do so with him and his friends, to the point where she pretty much steered clear of them, but it seemed like today Reiko had decided to break away from her usual thing. Combined with Naruto's already poor mood prior to coming here and right now the elder twin was feeling quite angered over this.

Reiko pouted, averting his gaze. "Well, I wouldn't put it like that…." She then looked back at him. "But, I thought, you know, it'd be nice to hang out for a bit. Is that okay, onii-chan?" Her pout went away and now she looked at her elder brother with hope in her eyes.

Despite all of the attention and privileges she had received growing up, Reiko was far from arrogant, and was quite thankful for everything her parents and everyone else had ever done so far. As a result of all the love and attention, she had grown up to be a very lively and energetic girl, making many friends that were around her age and was usually hanging out with at least several of them whenever she wasn't training or spending time with her parents. Indeed, she was a very happy girl who was satisfied with how her life has been going so far.

But.

There was just one thing, or rather one person, that had her worried for some time now. And that was her brother. For as long as she could remember, Naruto never hung out with her or anyone she knew. He was rarely, if ever, seen around the house by her or their parents and on the few occasions he is seen and interacted with them, conversations were short and very much to the point. The same thing occurred with him and the villagers and other shinobi as well, with Naruto moving about without a care while everyone else didn't seem to notice him.

And it was this that worried Reiko so much. It was as if her brother was a ghost in some way, moving from place to place silently and without notice. It was only the fact that she knew he had two friends that kept her from fully believing her brother to be a genuine loner.

Nonetheless, Reiko loved her brother dearly and truly wished to be able to be close with him and do things that brothers and sisters would normally do, but getting his attention was far from easy as he usually was doing one thing while she had to do another thing amongst other such circumstances. That, and the few times she actually could interact with him were not exactly ideal.

Such as now when he gave his answer.

"No." Naruto's voice was firm and seemed to leave no room for argument. "It's not okay, Reiko. Not one damn bit."

The look of hope in Reiko's eyes was extinguished, but despite this, she tried to talk back anyway. "B-But, why? Is it really that wrong to just hang out?" She looked ready to cry. All previous attempts to spend some time with her brother had ended in failure, with Naruto being quite blunt in his replies and now all that failure was getting to her.

"I wouldn't say it's wrong, but it's not fine," Naruto retorted as his pocketed hands clenched tightly into fists. "Especially since I think I told you one time for you to stay out of my business." This training field was perhaps the only place where he could truly be at peace and relax, aside from being with his friends. His sister's continued presence here was just continually grating his nerves.

Reiko's head lowered and her shoulders slumped as the anger in Naruto's voice all but literally pierced right through her. "B-But…."

Naruto then removed his right hand from his pocket and pointed towards the village. "Go." He said nothing more and didn't have to; the underlying anger said it all as it is.

Reiko's head lower in shame and sadness even more. "O-Okay…." she whispered before slowly turning and proceeding to walk away.

Naruto waited and watched until she was well out of sight a few minutes later. "Damn…." He sighed as his anger slowly seeped away. Taking a few deep breaths and exhaling slowly, Naruto managed to fully calm down and ran a hand through his hair.

"Maybe, I shouldn't have been so cold with her…." He thought a few minutes later as he recalled how sad his sister had looked just as she left. He didn't really mean to be so angry with her, but usually whenever he saw his sister, all he could think of is all of the neglect he suffered so far in life and the fact that it wasn't until relatively recently that his sister began to take notice of him and try to hang out with him wasn't exactly helping. If anything, it sort of rubbed him the wrong as it took her just this long to really notice him.

Naruto then walked up to the sakura tree and placed his hand on it again in an effort to calm down. It took a minute or two longer than it usually did, but Naruto was once again placated.

"Maybe coming out wasn't such a good idea though…" he thought. He had never imagined that Reiko would follow him to what was essentially his haven of a sort, but now that this has happened, he felt as though something had been violated in a way and it gave him a sense of unease despite his returned calmness.

However, he was snapped out of his thoughts when he once again detected someone approaching the training field.

He smiled softly this time around; the person coming was welcome, unlike Reiko.

Naruto turned to greet the new arrival. "Miki," he called out to his friend.

"Morning, Naruto-kun," she greeted as she appeared, the young woman greeted as she kept on walking.

Like Naruto, Miki had certainly grown up since she was young. She was of average height for a girl her age, but was startlingly curvaceous and well endowed, beating out some mature women in the bust department, with all of this packed onto a very slender frame. However, Miki was also quite muscularly well built (just like the Hachiou Bow Master from History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi), possessing strong and well toned arms and legs due to all of the time she spends training with swords, especially large and heavy ones, much to the surprise of many of her classmates back in the academy. Her very fit and attractive figure, however, was somewhat hidden by her current wear, consisting of a simple, easy-to-move-in black skirt and a plain lightly colored long sleeve shirt. Over that she wore a black apron that matched her shinobi sandals in color.

She had also grown out her hair a bit, so that it was just a bit past her shoulders, framing her cute face, with a few bangs actually almost spiking downwards to cover up her right eye a bit. She smiled beautifully as she approached Naruto.

"Still addressing me like that…" Naruto muttered, a little amused. He wasn't sure why, but one day a few years back, Miki had stopped addressing him simply by his name and had started to add the 'kun' suffix whenever she spoke his name. One time he had asked Ryuichi if he knew why Miki had started doing that, but all he got in response from his friend had been a shaking of the head in exasperation at the time. "What are you doing up so early? I figured you and Ryuichi would be sleeping in."

"Tou-san was up early and he figured that I might as well help him deliver a thing or two," Miki replied as she then hefted a long, thin package that Naruto hadn't immediately noticed before.

He blinked in surprise. "Let me guess: a sword?" he asked.

Miki nodded. "Yeah. He just finished this one up a few days ago, but forgot to deliver it to the one who commissioned it. So now I'm the one that has to do it." She pouted as she said that.

Naruto chuckled a bit. Miki's father was a blacksmith for shinobi weapons, with swords being his specialty. Ever since she was young, Miki would help him now and then, doing small errands like this. It went a long way towards explaining why she's always been fascinated with swords.

Miki looked at the package and then at Naruto. "Want to come with me? It'll just be a quick drop off since I think the person who ordered this is still in bed."

"Sure." Naruto smiled wholeheartedly as he said this. However, the smile dropped when Miki's face turned slightly red. "Er, Miki? You alright?"

"A-Ah, it's fine," she said, suddenly a little shy. "Let's go!" She turned around hastily and started to walk.

The eldest child of the hokage, a little confused, followed after her like a lost puppy.

Easily catching up with his only female friend, Naruto and Miki proceeded to quietly walk back to the village and remained quiet until they were about halfway through said village. "Wow, just where does this guy live? We've already passed by a few residential areas," Naruto pointed out.

"I only know his address. I've never really been near the area he lives in, so I can't really say much on that," Miki replied sheepishly.

Both fell silent for a few minutes after that.

"Say," Miki then said a minute later, "I saw your sister when I was walking to the training field…."

"Ah." Naruto nearly growled, though not out of anger. "You did, huh?" He shifted slightly as he walked, a little uncomfortable.

"Yeah. I could have sworn she looked ready to cry," Miki commented. Having been looking forward the whole as she walked, she finally craned her head to look at Naruto. "Did… something happen?"

Naruto nearly flinched under her concerned and questioning gaze. "Sort of." A pause. "She followed me to the training field and tried to hide from me in a tree," he said abruptly, "then when I called her out, she tried to talk me into hanging out with her, but I sent her away." The way seemed to rush saying those words only told Miki just how much of an effect that she, his close friend, can have on him for him to so suddenly spill out what had happened.

"I-I see," Miki replied, a bit taken aback by how sudden his reply had been. She tried to think of something say, but could only come up with this: "Sounds like you were pretty cold with her."

Her words did little to cheer him up. In fact, it did the opposite. Naruto hung his head in shame. "I know…" He sighed. "I know it's not her fault or anything for all the shit I put up with, but she shouldn't just be following me around to places. Especially not our training ground."

Miki did smile a little. "I know. And you have a right to be angry over this, but I think you're being too hard on her. I mean, she is at least trying to get to know you a bit better…. right?" She sounded unsure. She and Ryuichi have done their best over the years to try and give Naruto a shoulder to lean on, but there were times where they felt it was best for Naruto to try and reach out to his family and pray that his family would take notice of what they've unintentionally done and do likewise. So Reiko's attempts to connect with Naruto had their value in a way, even if the girl seemed to have this bad knack for moving in on Naruto's territory. And Naruto was _very_ territorial sometimes.

Naruto scratched the back of his head. "I guess…. ah, I don't know. With how she operates, I question if she's really serious…."

He fell silent and so did Miki, the girl unable to think of anything more to say. Both of them walked in silence the rest of the way to the place they were to deliver the sword to.

It took about several minutes of slightly sped up walking to get there, but finally they did. "This customer sure lives in an odd place…" Naruto muttered, having grown uncomfortable with the silence.

Miki silently agreed; whoever had commissioned the crafting of this sword lived in a part of the village that was well away from any residential areas and was instead more geared to commerce and trade. "Maybe he works as a trader or something on the side?" Miki spoke up as she gently placed the sword by the door to the home. It was still a bit too early in the morning for anyone to really be up, so there were very few people around and thus Miki wasn't too worried that someone would try to steal the sword; only shinobi bought swords and no civilian in his right mind would try to take it from shinobi after all the waiting for the new weapon.

"Maybe…" Naruto agreed. Though he wouldn't say it aloud, he was beginning to get an odd feeling. It was as if there was something off about this place. He doubted that whoever paid for this sword to be made was actually asleep at the moment.

"Say, Miki," Naruto then said with that in mind, "just what kind of sword did this guy exactly ask for?" he questioned as it occurred to him that perhaps there was also something to the sword.

As she turned away from the door and started to walk away from the oddly placed house, she answered Naruto. "Ah, it was nothing really special. Just a standard nodachi." A pause. "But it was kind of odd…"

Naruto raised an eyebrow in interest. "Odd in what way?" he asked.

"He had requested for the tip of the blade to be blunt. But what's really odd is the material he wanted it made out of…." Miki drifted off in thought for a few seconds. "I can't remember what the name of the metal was, but it was extremely rare. So rare, in fact, it took tou-san a few months to track down someone who actually had it in stock. Apparently, the customer had wanted this metal because of some special trait to it."

"A special trait?" Naruto looked confused.

However, rather than tell him, Miki simply looked resigned. "I don't know either; he didn't bother telling tou-san what exactly he meant by that." Then she sighed and smiled. "Well, at least that's taken care of. Now maybe I can go back home and sleep for a few more hours; it's way too early for me to be up." She stretched her arms as she said this.

Naruto just shook his head, a smile slowly appearing on his face. "Right. Well, in that case, how about I walk you back home, eh?"

Miki's face turned slightly red again, making Naruto confused. "Miki?"

His friend suddenly faced away from him. "A-Ah, it's nothing."

"….Ok?" Naruto didn't sound too sure himself when he said that one word.

Nonetheless, his confusion aside, he did indeed walk her home, the two of them chatting a bit on when exactly they should meet up to do some training since today was an off day for them. After all, he, Miki, and Ryuichi were all one team. It took a bit of time to plan things out, but eventually, they had decided to simply train on their own for about three or four days before having a group training session.

Eventually, they had arrived outside of Miki's house, in the form of a large two story building, the lower story serving as a weapons shop while Miki and her family lived on the second story. "I'll pass this info on to Ryuichi later, I guess," Naruto said as he and Miki stopped in front of the entrance to the shop.

"Sounds good to me." Then Miki smiled. "I wonder how the next spar between you two will go."

"What do you mean by that? Of course I'm going to win!" Naruto proclaimed confidently.

Miki giggled as she knew that he didn't actually mean it. Despite all of the training both Naruto and Ryuichi had undergone since they were young, despite how often they spar, there has yet to be an actual winner; all of their spars would end in a double knock out or a simple stalemate, with neither able to land the deciding blow on the other. But then again, it wasn't as if the two of them were going all out with the intent of killing each other or anything.

"Right," Miki said, though there was a slight teasing undertone to it. "Sure, you'll win."

"Hey, don't doubt me." Naruto pretended to pout.

Miki stifled a bit of a laugh. "I never did, Naruto-kun. I never did."

Naruto chuckled a bit too. "I know." He smiled, a true smile, one that he doubted he'll ever show around his so-called family.

"I think it's time I head in, Naruto-kun. Before my parents actually get up," Miki said a few seconds later after they had their little exchange.

"Right." Naruto took a few steps away from Miki, his eyes not leaving her. "Some things aside, that was a pretty nice morning walk. We should do that again some time."

Miki. "Definitely."

Naruto's smile grew slightly wider before he turned around and began to walk off, giving Miki a two finger salute in the process, a gesture that Miki returned in the form of a simple wave. Miki waited until Naruto was well out of sight before she decided to head inside.

However, it was at that moment that something very much unexpected happened.

The sound of a water drop suddenly rang out across the area, yet it was only audible to Miki and no one else.

"Eh?" That was all she was able to utter when a brilliant flash of light appeared, nearly blinding her because of how unexpected it was.

But as fast as it came, the blinding light disappeared and so Miki was now witness to a shocking sight. "W-What?!"

All around her, Konoha no longer existed. Instead, it was simply a vast, open space, devoid of anything. No buildings, no mountains or forest, no life. There didn't even appear to be a ground beneath her feet, giving her the impression that she was literally walking on space itself.

Miki, having never encountered anything like this before, responded to this by naturally looking very shocked and even a little scared as this was definitely not a genjutsu from the feel of it, which in turn meant that nothing she could do will break her out of it.

"W-What is….?!" She began to stutter out as she looked all around her for a way out.

She stopped her search before she could finish her sentence, leaping back suddenly when several figures, entirely shrouded in shadow appeared as well. "What?!" she thought as her right hand immediately moved to her side on instinct, intent on grabbing a sword to use, only to not find one. She swore under her breath at that.

"What the hell?!" one of the shadowy figures, from the sound of the voice, a man, bellowed. "What's this?!" It was clear that from the sound of his voice, he too was very much shocked by whatever was happening.

Miki stiffened a bit as she had nearly reacted once again to the man's sudden bellow, but then began to try and calm herself upon noting that from the barely visible body language of the other shadowy figures that they too were in the exact same position as her.

"Oi!" the same shadowy figure spoke up. "The fuck is going on?!" he demanded of the others, Miki included. When he got no immediate reply, he got angry. "Hey! Cow! I'm talking to you!"

Miki glared at him. "I don't know! Why are you asking me anyway?!" she shot back.

"You little bi-!" he started.

"Well, you guys are certainly loud. Annoyingly so," a new voice said, one that belonged to none of the other figures.

In one synchronized motion, all of them turned to see that someone else had shown up too. And unlike them, he was not hidden by shadows, giving them all a good look at him.

The arrival was young, no older than maybe thirteen, and was clearly a boy. He was a bit shorter than what would be expected of his age and possessed a thin physique shown off by the slightly baggy grey pants he wore in addition to a simple light blue shirt and black jacket over it, so he couldn't possibly be a shinobi of any kind.

Despite this, the boy's childish face, framed by shaggy golden blond hair, had a very confident, even arrogant smile on his face. His steel grey eyes looked at them all as though they were nothing but bugs.

"A kid?" the man from earlier spoke, disbelief evident in his voice. "The fuck? Is this some kind of game?" he growled out in growing anger.

The boy laughed haughtily, an action that made everyone there feel quite uncomfortable and not particularly eager to get to know him. "A game…. heh…." the boy said.

Everyone could practically feel the boy's bad intentions at this point. His existence was beginning to grate them all right now and he's only been here for not even a minute.

"What's so funny about this, boy?" the man demanded.

"Ah, nothing much, oaf." The man bristled, but was ignored. "It's just that 'game' is a fitting word to use right now." He took a few steps towards them all. "And it is with that said I now invite you all to this 'game.'"

"Ha?" Miki said. She could feel the others shifting in their spots too in silence at what the boy just said.

The boy stood up a bit straighter as he placed his hands in his pockets. A smug grin appeared on his face. "You five are but five out of twelve people selected by a god to compete for a god's power." The boy's smug grin grew wider as he saw through their body language the shock of everyone there. "If you win this 'game' then the power that you'll obtain will be nothing short of immense. Anything will be possible for you, even immortality," he looked at one of the shadowy figures as he said that and then looked at the man from earlier. "And even the ability to resurrect someone, without any drawbacks."

Miki openly gaped at the boy, though she doubted anyone could see her do so; if she was right, then just as these people had their identities hidden from her, then it worked vice versa as well. "T-That's impossible! You're just making this up!"

The boy snorted. "Believe what you will, but it doesn't affect the reality before you. I'm simply the messenger who has come to announce the start of this game."

"I believe it would be best if you would be a bit more detailed," one of the shadowy figures said, a female from the sound of the voice and a young one at that too, possibly around the same age as Miki from what the girl could tell.

The boy glanced her way. "Fine then, I suppose." He removed his hands from his pockets and spread his arms far apart as though to welcome someone into his arms. "This world is where the participants – that being, us – shall fight as a part of Ragnarok. This is the world made by the ultimate magus, codenamed Odin. And it was Odin who gave me the position of messenger and game master for this game and as a result, I can make a few changes to this world – Ai Space – whenever I want. And for now, all I did was simply 'remove' it a bit more than it usually is from the rest of the world," he explained.

"Magus?" Another one of the unknown figures said, another man.

The boy sneered at him. "Ah, you don't even know that much. Very well, I'll enlighten you a bit."

Miki couldn't see the man's face, but she had the distinct feeling that he was very much angry over how this kid was acting. "At some point in your lives, you all came across a sort of stones, stones that have never really been seen before," he began.

Miki flinched at that as suddenly she found herself thinking back on something years ago. "He doesn't mean…." she thought.

"And these stones merged with you. The reason why they did is quite simple: they are designed to do so with certain people. Certain people who are born with innate magical abilities." He looked them all over before continuing. "People. Just. Like. Us."

He smiled as he let the words sink in for them all. "You see, people like us, who are born with these innate powers, are known as magi. However. We are unable to unlock our magical abilities on our own, for unknown reasons. But when these stones merge with us, they interact with our innate magical abilities so that when a time comes when we experience a moment of great trauma or are in a situation that would require a powerful will on our part, the stone will awaken our magical abilities, which will take on the form of a magical weapon."

The boy looked back at the man who asked the question. "And I'm sure you can guess the rest from there," he said.

"Magical weapon?" Miki asked tentatively.

The boy then looked at her and leered. "What? You've awakened as a magus quite some time ago, and yet you still don't know what it's called? How stupid are you?" he taunted.

Miki's eyebrow twitched in annoyance, both at being taunted like this and at the fact that this boy knew about that particular fact.

Indeed, Miki was a magus, having awakened her magical weapon a little more than a year ago. It had been during a mission with her team, her fellow genin Naruto and Ryuichi. It had been a simple enough mission: to go and take down a bandit group that had been threatening a nearby village. At one point during the take down, the three of them had gotten separated and she was very nearly killed by several bandits. However, she had utterly refused to go down without a fight and it was her strong resolve at the time against the surprisingly strong bandits that had awoken her magical weapon and she had been able to defeat them, thankfully without using her, at the time, new weapon. Having been shocked and a tad bit frightened by the sudden change, she had kept this a secret from her two friends even until today.

And yet, despite the lengths she went to in order to avoid having her magical abilities known, this boy had appeared to know all along.

The boy chuckled. "In case you are wondering about how I know, it's really quite simple. With my magical weapon, there is nothing that I can't possibly know or do. After all, it is my right as the true King to know all."

"Ku ku ku, a king you say?" the shadowy figure who had asked about the term magus said. "You are no king, little boy. Not in the slightest."

The boy glanced at the man and sneered, though there was a bit of an edge to it this time around. "If that is really what you think, then I won't try and change your mind. A king doesn't have to prove anything to anyone."

Then he looked them all over. "Now then, with that out of the way, I suppose it's time to actually explain the rules of this game a bit. After all, there is another matter that I have to deal with right after this."

He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them a few seconds later, the sneer gone in favor of a small, almost gleeful smirk. "The rules are quite simple really. At my choosing, Ai Space shall be invoked and it is here that we magi will fight. It doesn't matter how the battles go, it could be one against one or two against one, etc. All that matters is that one magus must have his or her magical weapon destroyed within thirteen hours of Ai Space being invoked. The destruction of the magical weapon will mark the magus' defeat."

"Thirteen hours," the girl from earlier spoke up. "For there to be such a time constraint implies something will happen if time runs out. What happens if no magus is defeated within that time frame?" she questioned almost emotionlessly.

Miki couldn't help but shiver slightly at how calm this girl was despite all that was going on. It was downright unnerving at how she just seemed to accept everything.

"If no one is defeated after thirteen hours, then Ai Space, which encompasses all of the major hidden villages and every minor one in between them all, shall expand until it engulfs the entire world. And once that happens, everything that could be defined as alive will cease to exist." The boy grinned coldly as he said this.

Miki was shocked, even horrified by this. "What?! Why would you do something like that?!" she demanded.

All she got in response was a shrug. "I didn't make up these rules. Odin did." He simply shrugged again. "Moving on, there are just a few things for you all to be informed of. Firstly," he began and snickered, "I should tell you all that as I'm sure you're well aware of now, is that as a result of awakening as magi, we've all become extraordinarily hard to kill. We could be skinned alive and end up growing back all of our skin after nearly an entire day. We even have noticeably extended lifespans, on top of slower aging. It wouldn't be too much of stretch to say that we are immortal in some respects."

"However. Despite our own formidable 'immortality' for lack of a better word, we can still be killed. Through the destruction of our own magical weapons," the boy said, now no longer playful or arrogant, but almost grim. "If our magical weapons are destroyed, then we shall not simply die, but cease to exist entirely. We will be wiped clean from the memories of anyone we've ever met and any physical records of us will up and vanish too. For us, it will be as if history itself had forgotten us, as if we never even existed."

At that, Miki grew horrified, more so than she already was. Her legs began to quiver slightly, her mind desperately trying to wrap itself around all of this. However, what the boy had just said was definitely not lost on her. If these 'rules' really were as ironclad as he hints they are, then the only way to prevent the destruction of all life on earth was to fight and defeat another magus here in Ai Space. But in order to defeat a magus, his or her magical weapon would have to be destroyed, in turn wiping that magus out of existence entirely. It was too cruel a fate, one that she wouldn't wish even on her own most hated enemy. But if time ran out in Ai Space and no one was subjected to such a cruel fate, then it was the end of all life.

But the boy was not done just yet. "And as it just so happens to be, only a magical weapon can destroy another magical weapon, though there are some exceptions," he said as he looked up as if in thought. Then he looked back at all of them, who were now so still out of shock. A small smile found its way onto his face now. "Well, I suppose it's better than simply dying and leaving others to carry the load," he said, shrugging dismissively. However, his voice carried something else to it that no one there could identify.

"And lastly, whenever a magus is defeated, that person's magical power will absorbed by the one who defeated him or her, thereby increasing the winner's mana reserves," the boy finally finished. "Are there any more questions, plebeians?"

When he received no reply, either because they were all simply too shocked or horrified to speak up or simply because they really had no questions, the boy smiled and nodded to himself.

"Very well then. Well, it has been a bit of a bother to actually tell you all of this, but I suppose it couldn't have been helped; I am the game master after all." He put his left hand in the jacket's left pocket while he raised his right arm straight up. "It's time for me to return you all back to the real world. Have fun squirming about until we fight because whichever one of you is unlucky enough to fight me will definitely not be winning," he said haughtily.

"W-Wait!" Miki yelled after finding her voice. The boy looked at her, annoyed, but she didn't care one bit. "You said that there were twelve people chosen for this… this…. horrific game! What about them?! What if they haven't awakened as magi yet or been informed of this?!"

The young game master chuckled. "Not my problem. Besides, them not knowing about any of this will only make things much more entertaining when I start the game for real, don't you think?"

Miki's eyes widened in absolute shock, only to then narrow. Her fists clenched tightly as she felt this powerful urge to hurt this kid, but she couldn't do anything about it; there was no ground for her to try and run across to get him. "You…. I don't know who you think you are, but you're already beyond forgiving!"

The boy's eyebrow twitched. "Beyond forgiving? Me? Beyond _your_ forgiving? You're forgetting your place, you big-boobed cow. I am the king and you are just an insect," he retorted angrily.

"Oh yeah, then how about you prove it?! All you've done so far is just talk and gloat!" Miki shot back. She knew that she most likely shouldn't antagonize him, especially since she had no idea what he really was capable of in addition to the drawback of her own magical weapon, but she couldn't help it; she was pissed.

The boy was silent for a minute while the shadowy figures simply watched in silence, one of them feeling rather amused by this. "I am Takehiko. Wakahisa Takehiko. Remember my name, you wench, for perhaps one day, we really will see who is the supreme one."

He then addressed everyone else. "Until then, plebeians. Try not to use your magical weapon outside of Ai Space; the last thing I feel like putting up with is the attention of all those pathetic shinobi on us."

And then he snapped the fingers of his raised right hand and the blinding light from before appeared once more.

A second later, the light faded and Miki blinked, stupefied. She was back in front of her home. She whirled around, cautiously looking to see if perhaps there was a surprise lying in wait for her.

When there wasn't, Miki sighed slightly in relief, but her mind was still very much chaotic from all that had just been said by that Takehiko kid. She gulped as a bit of sweat formed on her forehead. Her hands clenched tightly into fists, so much so that her arms shook almost violently.

But she eventually managed to calm down a minute or two later, taking deep breaths to clear her mind, closing her eyes in the process as well. And when she opened them up once more, there was a look of complete determination in her eyes, such that even the most powerful of jonin would be frozen to the spot if they had spotted this.

She had resolved herself; no matter what happened, she wasn't going to let this ritual or whatever it really was hurt anyone else. Even if she had to fight her way through eleven other people, she would not let this ritual do anyone else harm.

On this, she swore that she will do her best to survive and win and then perhaps use whatever power the winner is promised to try and undo any damage done.

With this resolution now all but literally carved into her soul, Miki entered her home to try and prepare for whatever would come next.

* * *

Whelp, that's the end of the first chapter guys! Sorry if I dumped a lot of info on you near the end there, but I had to get all of that stuff out of the way as it would have been a bit harder to explain it all little by little anyway. And besides, I have plenty of other surprises lying in wait to make up for this info dump, ha ha ha.

At any rate, I hope you enjoyed the first actual chapter to the God-Slaying Wolf. And with that said, I'll see you guys next time!


	3. Chapter 2

Hey there everyone! Yeah, my apologies for the long wait, but I got caught up with things for classes, namely 2 essays, studying for/taking like 2 or 3 tests, etc. You know how it is, guys. But now that I have dealt with all of that, I have finally been able to sit down and get this chapter churned out. But then again, now that I think on it a bit, I actually got this chapter out a bit sooner than I had expected to, I think….

Well, at any rate, I won't take up any more space with this AN, so with that said, here's the next chapter.

Hope you enjoy!

P.S. Action should be coming up within the next chapter or two!

Chapter 2

Kushina sighed as she got out of bed and went downstairs. The reason why she was sighing was because she had gone to her children's bedrooms to wake them, but found said rooms empty. Looked like they had woken up even earlier than she did.

"Well, I guess it's a good thing they have that kind of energy," she thought with a bit of smile.

As she walked finished walking downstairs and began to head to the kitchen to start making breakfast, she blinked in surprise when she heard the front door sliding open followed by the sound of light footsteps coming down the hallway and into the living room area.

Kushina quickly exited the kitchen in time to see her daughter turn towards the stairs. The red head was more than just a bit taken aback by the look of shame and sadness on her face.

"Reiko?" she called out.

Her daughter paused mid-step and turned to look at her. "Oh, morning kaa-san…" Even her voice sounded quite sad.

Kushina walked up to her. "Reiko? Honey, what's wrong?" she asked, looking a little worried. Her daughter was always a very lively and upbeat girl. For her to look sad and this sad at it was a little startling.

"A-Ah." Reiko shifted a little uncomfortably as she looked away from her mother. "It's nothing, kaa-san."

Kushina knew better. "Reiko." Now her voice held just a bit of steel to it, all but stating that lying just wasn't going to cut it with her. "It's definitely not nothing that is bothering you."

The young girl lowered her head a bit and was silent for a moment. "W-Well…"

"Well what?" Kushina gently questioned.

Reiko lowered her head a bit more. "It's onii-chan…."

Now Kushina looked a bit taken aback. "Naruto? What about him?" she asked, genuinely confused. Did her children get into some sort of argument?

"I just wanted to hang out with him was all… but onii-chan turned me down…" Reiko said sadly. Even now, after taking her time walking back home, her brother's words rang in her mind. The cold tone he had talked in all but pierced her soul. Was she that much of an annoyance to him? Was the idea of two siblings being around one another that repulsive to the elder Namikaze child?

Kushina looked at her daughter in surprise. She hadn't expected that. Why would her son turn down a chance to spend time with his sister? As far as she knew, it wasn't as if Reiko did anything that would annoy anyone.

"I-Is that so?" Kushina began, unable to think of how to reply to that. This wasn't what she had expected to hear. "I'll be sure to have a talk with Naruto then, whenever he comes home." She knew it wasn't much, but it was the best she could come up with.

Then, she smiled a bit, in an attempt to try and cheer up Reiko a bit. "How about some breakfast? What would you like to have? I'll make you what you want," the wife of the hokage asked her daughter, switching gears as fast as possible.

Reiko simply turned away from her mother and started to walk up the stairs. "Sorry, kaa-san…. not really hungry right now…." She muttered this just loud enough for Kushina to hear before she reached the second floor and began to head for her home.

Kushina was just about to call out to her when she heard her daughter open and close the door to her room. "What was that all about?"

She went to the kitchen, but rather than start on breakfast, she simply sat at the dining table, deep in thought.

So deep in thought was she that she didn't realize how much time had passed by until Minato came down stairs. "Kushina? What's wrong?" her husband, the hokage, asked.

"Ah, Minato…." Kushina didn't really know where to start.

Minato just blinked at how Kushina's voice sounded, so quiet and contemplative, a far cry from the more vibrant way she spoke. He motioned to upstairs. "Just checked on Reiko. She looked pretty down. Is there something wrong?" he asked again.

Kushina then proceeded to tell him what Reiko had told her. A few minutes passed by as this occurred, Kushina taking her time in telling her husband how Reiko had acted and such.

By the end of the very brief news, Minato looked just as surprised as Kushina had by what Reiko had told her. "Naruto? Really?"

His wife nodded. "Yeah. Surprised me too."

Minato looked confused. "I… I don't understand. Why would Reiko look so sad over that?" he questioned. He was having a bit of a hard time imagining why Naruto would refuse to spend time with his own sister and apparently to reject her so coldly if the forlorn look on Reiko's face was anything to go by.

Kushina just shrugged helplessly. "I wish I knew." Then a pause. "Well, one thing is for certain. I plan to have a talk with him whenever he gets home," she said, sounding determined to do so. Once she sets her mind to something, she's going to see it through to the end.

Minato rubbed his chin. "Yeah. We will have to have a talk with him…. But..." He looked at Kushina. "Just how do you plan to start talking with him? It just occurred to me that he's not really home that often, at least when we're around.

Kushina sighed. "T-That is a good point." Then she looked down a bit. "Come to think of it, I can't really recall him eating dinner with us recently as well… you think maybe something is going on with him?" she asked her husband.

Now it was Minato's turn to shrug. "I honestly don't know…."

Neither of them were aware of the true reason why, that they had all but neglected Naruto for a majority of his life. They had been so intent on training Reiko to control the power of the Kyubi and making sure she is also strong enough to defend herself – as a jinchuriki and the daughter of the hokage and an Uzumaki, she was a prime target for kidnapping and potential assassinations – that they failed to take notice of Naruto, even as the boy had once upon a time tried to get not just their attention, but also the attention of everyone else. But the boy was quiet by nature and with his sister being the exact opposite of quiet, it had been easy for both Minato and Kushina and even the rest of the village to grow incredibly accustomed to focusing on Reiko while almost completely ignoring Naruto.

Kushina huffed and crossed her arms across her chest. This feeling of not knowing what was wrong was bothering her. "Well…. I guess that's something else I can talk with Naruto about…." she muttered.

Minato nodded. "Right." He then looked at a clock nearby and began to stand up. "That time already…."

He began to head to the front door, getting his shinobi sandals along the way. "Time for me to head to the office. I'll also have a talk with Naruto too if I happen to bump into him," he said, smiling in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.

It must have been so as Kushina slightly cheered up. "Okay." She got up and she and her husband kissed briefly before he left.

But after Minato left, Kushina's small smile dropped. Despite Minato's words, she still felt a little perturbed. "I sure hope nothing bad is going on with either of my kids…." she thought.

At any rate, all she can do now is simply wait for Naruto to come home and just hope for the best. With this in mind, Kushina decided to head back upstairs for now.

Elsewhere in the village, Naruto walked about, with no real destination in mind. Since today was an off day for his team and they wouldn't be meeting for a few more days, he was pretty much free to do as he pleased. "Well, I still have to pass this news along to Ryuichi anyway…." He thought as he ran a hand through his hair.

Still, even with this self imposed task of telling Ryuichi the little meet up he and Miki had planned for them, he really had nothing else to do. He could train, true, but he felt that he could wait until perhaps the afternoon to do that. It'll give him a reason to stay out of the house at any rate. But until then, there was really nothing else he could do.

He could go around to the shops and see if anything catches his eye, but this held little appeal for him as there was very little that shops could offer that'll actually catch his attention. He could head to Konoha's public library and see if there's any new books, but that'd simply be a waste of time as he was a bit picky about what he read and he already had all of the new books that intrigued him.

Then he stopped walking when something occurred to him. "I have no damn life…." he thought in equal parts shock and anger. Outside of training, missions, and hanging out with Ryuichi and Miki, he literally had nothing else to do.

Naruto set his teeth. His fists clenched tightly. But just as quickly as the rage came, it disappeared, leaving him feeling a little solemn.

"A little too late to be angry about that, I guess…." he thought.

He started walking again, this time, with a destination: a spot that Ryuichi would like to go to sometimes whenever he wasn't training as much as Naruto did. Naruto figured that if Ryuichi wasn't there, then he'll try Ryuichi's place next.

It took him a little more than half an hour to reach the place – he was in no particular hurry – but he finally reached it: the hokage mountain.

And sure enough he spotted Ryuichi sitting on top of the first hokage's head.

Though Naruto's footsteps were unbelievably quiet, Ryuichi still appeared to have heard them. "Naruto," he said. One could practically hear the smile in his voice. "Morning."

"Yo, Ryuichi." Naruto smiled too now.

Ryuichi turned around to look at him and even stood up.

Much like Naruto, Ryuichi had grown over the years and possessed a very lean yet muscular build from all of the taijutsu training he did. Standing at just a few inches shorter than Naruto, Ryuichi was dressed in a plain white shirt with an open short sleeved black button up shirt over it. He wore military green pants and black closed toed shinobi sandals. Ryuichi's black hair had also slightly grown and also become a little more messy than it was as when he was young.

He put his right hand in his pocket while slightly motioning with his left hand, drawing attention to the black glove he wore on it. "You're up and about earlier than usual."

"Eh, I figured there was no point to just lying around in bed is all," Naruto replied as he kept on walking towards his friend. "The same could be said to you though."

Ryuichi just smiled. "Like you, I didn't see much of a point to staying in bed. Besides, today is an off day for us, so I might as well do something, right?"

"True…." Naruto walked passed him a bit and took a moment to simply enjoy the sight. Standing atop the first hokage's head on the mountain gave him an excellent view of the entire village. Combined with the still rising sun and it made for a view that would put any painting to shame in beauty.

Ryuichi moved next to him and the two proceeded to simply take in the view.

"Miki and I think we should meet up in a few days for our next group training session," Naruto finally said after a few minutes of silence. "Until then, we can just do whatever we want on our own."

Ryuichi merely nodded, an action Naruto saw out of the corner of his eye. The two of them remained silent for a little while longer.

"So what is it, Ryuichi?" Naruto asked, having the feeling that his friend wanted to ask him something.

"Hm? Nothing much. Just wonder if anything is bugging you is all," Ryuichi said without taking his gaze off of the village.

"Nothing's bugging me right now." A pause. "Though Reiko did try to hang out with me earlier…."

"Ah." Ryuichi knew Naruto well enough to know almost exactly how that would go.

"Yeah." Naruto didn't have to say anything more.

Ryuichi looked at him. "Since you already talked to Miki, I take it she already said something that I would have said in this situation." When Naruto nodded in confirmation of this, Ryuichi simply smirked almost mirthfully; he and his friends knew each other too well sometimes.

"Yeah, yeah…. still, being told to give her a chance isn't exactly going to make me want to rush and let her cling to me or anything…" Naruto sighed.

"I know. Miki and I are just trying to help, Naruto," Ryuichi replied.

"Yeah, I know that." Naruto began to sound a little tired. "But I tried to get their attention growing up and that failed spectacularly at every turn. Why should I have to go out of my way to try again when they're clearly not doing anything either?"

He all but glared at Ryuichi as he spoke those words. He felt he was quite right. He tried to get his sister's and his parents' attention when he was young and that didn't work at all. So he had come to grudgingly accept the neglect and forge his own path. And his friends wanted him to try and perhaps talk to his family after all these years of essentially being on his own? And while his family still has yet to notice him, save for Reiko? Not a chance in hell.

Now it was Ryuichi's turn to sigh. "Look, Naruto. I can't say I fully understand your situation since I'm an orphan while you still have parents," he began, "but I can understand that being ignored and left on your own is a painful thing. Back before I met you or Miki, I was on my own and it was a painful time for me. As a child, I just didn't understand why I was so alone, even in the orphanage, but I knew it hurt. A lot."

He stopped looking at the village and now turned to face Naruto. "But the pain of being alone went away when I met you and Miki, Naruto. And over the years, I've come to have a few more friends, though none as close to me as you and Miki are." He gazed at Naruto with strong eyes. "And now, Miki and I see that with the exception of us as friends, you too are alone. And we can't stand to see you in that kind of pain, Naruto. And it is this reason that we have all but been forcing you to try and reconnect with your family, so that you can no longer be a lone wolf."

Ryuichi and Naruto locked gazes for several seconds after that until the latter turned away, sighing. Naruto scratched the back of his head as he thought. "…. I guess you're right," he eventually said. He looked at Ryuichi again. "Sorry."

Ryuichi slowly smiled. "No worries. Miki and I are here to support you. Even if it is somewhat against your will."

Naruto chuckled. "Noted."

The two friends proceeded to look over the village once more.

"Still not going to try and reach out to them anytime soon though," Naruto said offhandedly.

"Of course, Naruto. Of course," Ryuichi said. At least that was one thing that would never change: Naruto's stubbornness.

Elsewhere, in a forest outside Iwagakure, a man stood before a small clearing. The man, tall and muscular from many years of intense training and battling on the front lines of missions, stared straight ahead at the edge of the clearing.

There, a make shift grave could be seen.

The man then looked down, a pained and miserable look in his black eyes. He ran a hand through his short dark brown hair. "I miss you every day…." he muttered, "So, so much…."

His mind was clouded with many thoughts at the moment, leaving him very much unable to fully focus on anything else. Despite this, the man was still perfectly capable of noticing when he was being watched. Such as now.

"Whoever you are, come out," he growled out as he felt someone watching him just now.

He whirled around, turning in the direction he believed the person to be in.

He was right; rustling was audible as someone began to make their way out of the forest and into the clearing. The man couldn't see who it was due to his or her height and the way most of the trees and bushes were seemingly bigger than him. And while he could slightly sense some chakra, it was weak, barely on par with adult civilians.

However, when the person finally stepped out into the clearing for him to see, the man's eyes widened in shock and he immediately prepared to attack. "You!"

"Ha ha ha, it would seem you're not too happy to see me, oaf," Takehiko said, the boy walking up to the man without a care in the world.

The man took up a taijutsu stance, remembering quite well everything Takehiko had said earlier that day. "I don't know just who think you are, you annoying brat, but now you-!"

Before he could finish the sentence, Takehiko spoke up. "Don't bother summoning your magical weapon. It won't do you any good. Not out of Ai Space, anyway." He smirked. "The only thing you'd succeed in doing is simply wasting our time, Katsu."

The man, Katsu, stopped what he was doing. He narrowed his eyes. "How do you know my name?" he demanded, not dropping his stance.

Takehiko laughed. "Don't you remember what I told you and the others just a while ago in Ai Space? There is nothing I cannot know." He kept on walking towards Katsu. "Now, will you finally drop your stance, oaf? Or will you try and futilely attack me?"

Katsu bristled, but didn't attack. Instead, he dropped his stance, but still made a point to keep his guard up. "What the hell do you want? And what did you mean by that just now, about summoning my magical weapon?"

Takehiko's smirk transformed into a grin. "I may have left out a rule or two earlier," he stated.

The older man blinked. "Left out a rule or two, you say? What, we can't summon our magical weapons outside of that…. dimension or whatever?" he demanded.

The kid simply waved a hand dismissively. "Not at all. By all means, you can summon your magical weapon whenever you wish. However, one of the rules I left out was that outside of Ai Space, it is impossible to destroy the magical weapon of other participants in Ragnarok, even with another magical weapon. Odin made this rule to keep all of the fighting and death strictly in Ai Space."

Then he chuckled. "Though without any of the other participants knowing this rule, they'll fight each other if they meet outside of Ai Space and only succeed in wearing themselves down by the time I do invoke Ai Space. Makes for an easier win on my part that way," he explained.

Katsu looked greatly shocked at this before growling again. He should have known that something had to have been done if the ritual was to take place without any hitches. But there was one other thing bothering him right now. "Why are you telling me this?"

For the second time, Takehiko's grin dropped and he actually looked serious for once. "Because, despite all of my posturing back there, even I have to grudgingly admit that winning this ritual will be no easy feat for me, even with my magical weapon. So it would be of great use to me to have some back up."

Katsu now immediately knew where this was going. He raised his head while also folding his arms across his chest. "…. Are you suggesting an alliance between us?" he questioned.

Takehiko sighed. "Yes," he succinctly replied, though not without a hint of anger. "That is exactly what I am saying."

Katsu actually took a step back in surprise. "And why choose me as a potential ally?" His eyes narrowed once more. "What is your reason for doing so?"

"Because for one thing, your magical weapon is one that even I have to admit is impressive. I have seen you in action with it on the rare occasions you used it and what it is capable of was certainly quite a performance." Takehiko slowly began to smile once more, though not quite as arrogantly as before. "And for another reason, if you help me win Ragnarok, then I will in turn help you."

He eyed the make shift grave as he said this.

Katsu followed his gaze. "I recall what you said earlier…. about resurrection being possible…." he began. "Were you telling the truth?" he asked while simultaneously thinking on this.

Takehiko nodded. "I may have withheld a rule or two, but I don't lie. A king like me doesn't have to lie."

Katsu fell silent. He looked at Takehiko and then looked at the make shift grave. His eyes lingered on the latter far longer they had on Takehiko, many emotions visible in his eyes. "Fine then," he eventually said, his head dropping to look down at the young magus.

"Good." Takehiko smiled up at him, said smile being just like it was before: confident to the point of pure arrogance.

"However." Takehiko fell silent as Katsu spoke. "Know this: if I think for one second you will turn against me, I will put an end to you, one way or another. And as a jonin of Iwagakure, I am more than skilled enough to make your death very painful," Katsu said as he motioned to the clothes he wore, said clothes being the standard attire of an Iwagakure shinobi.

Takehiko snorted. "Very well then. And I should also say the same to you." His eyes narrowed. "If you turn against me, then I can assure you that despite my young age, you won't die painlessly."

Both of them glared at one another for all of a minute before Katsu nodded slowly. "Very well then. With this out of the way, just what comes next?"

Takehiko didn't answer him right away. Instead, he turned away and looked off into the distance. "Want to know something interesting about magical weapons? More often than not, the beliefs and desires of a magus serve as the basis for his or her magical weapon. The magical weapon will end up possessing abilities that are the result of these beliefs and desires." He looked at Katsu. "I'm sure you may have noticed this given your own desire and what your magical weapon is capable of, yes?"

His new ally simply looked confused. "….Yes, I have noticed that, if only in passing. But how does that relate to my question?"

The boy smirked, even chuckled. "Because of my beliefs, my magical weapon allows me to easily keep track of all the participants in Ragnarok. It is how I found you so easily. Of course, my magical weapon is capable of much more than that, but that is not the point I'm trying to make here. What I am saying is that I am always up to date on where all the participants are."

His smirk became positively vicious. "And right now, one participant is heading towards Hi No Kuni, where two other magi currently are."

Katsu hummed in acknowledgement as he folded his arms across his chest. "I see. Then you plan to start this ritual for sure?"

"Oh yes." Takehiko looked in the direction of Hi No Kuni, his smirk never wavering. "I'll give the three a few days for them all to be in relatively the same spot. Then, we'll start this game."

Elsewhere, on a path that leads pass a small village, a young slender girl could be seen walking there. She appeared to be no older than sixteen, with pale skin and long pale blond hair that went down just a bit past her shoulder blades.

She walked oddly, almost limply, with the mesh shirt she wore hanging just a bit off her shoulders. She wore a small coat over it that grey in color, which happened to match the color of the shorts she wore. The black thigh high shinobi sandals the girl wore also somehow clomped on the dirt road.

The girl stared straight ahead, her dark red eyes showing virtually no emotion. Her stare was so chilling that any passer-bys on the path would avoid her, shivering as they passed her, as if death just washed over them.

She noticed this, but did nothing. She had far better things to deal with.

Like finding the other magi participating in Ragnarok so that she can fulfill her wish.

And with this thought in mind, the teenaged girl continued her trek to and through Hi No Kuni.

* * *

And that's that!

Yep, as you can tell by the ending, action is finally coming up in the next chapter or two! But of course, I still have to set the stage for just a few more things before I can actually get to said action, but don't worry, the set up will be relatively quick; I've been itching to get to the fighting ever since the prologue.

Well, with that said, I must also say this: even though I just got like 2 tests done for classes and 2 essays as well, I have 3 more exams coming up followed by preparing yet another essay. This is in addition to me spending a bit more time on my side project, so the next chapter to this will most likely not be out until perhaps mid December. But there may always be a change of plans, so it could possibly be out a bit sooner. Just giving you guy a heads up.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter!


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